


Less I Know The Better

by babyFratelli



Category: Arctic Monkeys
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Use, F/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyFratelli/pseuds/babyFratelli
Summary: Baby's had many judgements passed on her before. Some of them she can even agree with. Rude? She prefers cheeky. Promiscuous? At a stretch. Insincere? Well, that's a given.But lovable?That's one she just couldn't believe.But when she finds herself in the arms of a smitten Alex Turner, she might just change her mind.(Also on Wattpad under 'I Wanna Be Yours')





	Less I Know The Better

**Author's Note:**

> I heard him chuckling as I downed it and passed the empty can to Hammel on our way into the studio, pointedly not noticing the irritated look he shot me.  
> "Morning all!" I exclaimed, feeling a touch delirious, as I plopped myself down on of the chairs in front of a microphone, pulling a pair of huge blue headphones over my head.  
> Two heads and a slicked-back quiff turned to me as I settled back in my spinny chair and prepared myself for a bollocking after the interview.

I shut off the taps and flipped my head right-side-up. I'd always hated washing my hair in sinks. My lips stretched painfully around a yawn, the skin tight and cracking, eyes watering. I blinked a few times as stuck my hand into the paper towel dispenser. I yawned again, in anguish, as I found it empty, and was forced to resort to scrubbing my face with an equally wet palm instead. Already, I could feel last night's sweat drying on my back, sealing it to my clothes. I looked up in the mirror and found myself wearing a ratty black woollen jumper - well, jumper was kind. It looked more like a collection of black string and holes, with bits of rib and skimpy sports bra swimming beneath it. I must have picked it up somewhere while I was wasted. I wiped my hands on one of the more 'intact' bits of material and shook my head slightly, in a failed attempt to clear it. Water continued to run lines down my back and chest, the jumper making a pitiful attempt at absorbing it. I sighed out a half-hearted sort of chuckle. Man, I felt rough. Last night was  _rough_. I smirked and resolved to sort  _that_ mess out another time. Hammel would probably confront me about it after I'd resigned myself to whatever fresh interview-hell he'd cooked up for me this morning.

My back clicked as I twisted slightly and stretched, the thin, baggy sleeves of the jumper sliding sulkily down my arms as I reached upwards. I screwed my face up at the feeling of muscles tightening around my ribcage and relaxed my body again. Then another bloody yawn. Despite only being in my late teens, hangovers and comedowns were two things I was very used to. And in my experience, your best hope for survival was to fight fire with fire. With this rousing thought, I delved into the front pocket of my skirt and extracted the little bag of coke that was left there from my escapades last night. From the original gram, I reckon there was about a third left: enough for a line or two, if I kept them skinny. I felt another yawn rise. Blinking sleepy tears away, I observed my thin fingers find a dry patch on the yellowing sink, and begin to scrape up two narrow lines with the edge of a plastic English fiver I'd found in my waistband. Suddenly, I was blearily rolling up the note and snorting the lines in one big gasp. I stood up straight and wriggled my shoulders a bit. That should do it. Fire with fire.

Almost immediately, it seemed like, Hammel was banging on the metal door of the petrol station toilets and I was being hurried away into our van. As I crashed into the passenger seat next to Degs, I felt my blood rushing a little faster through my veins, and felt that, yes - perhaps I did have some vague hope of surviving this interview.

***

Unfortunately for me, due to such a long drive to the radio station I was guesting at - complete with several stops for fags, booze and a newspaper bought just for the daily crossword - my high was far gone by the time we arrived. As I stumbled out of the van into the stifling humid air of the station car park, I was feeling slightly flu-ey and thoroughly sorry for myself. A stressed-to-the-nines employee was stood jiggling nervously outside the building, scratching her wrists impatiently as she waited to greet us. I fell behind with Degs as we approached her, Hammel heading the group and launching instantly into an apology for our tardiness. We followed them through a dusty lobby into a dustier lift up to the studio we'd been expected at at least an hour earlier. I heard the employee explain that they'd had to put the other guest band before us to avoid an embarrassing gap in the programme. I groaned as we stepped out of the lift into a bright corridor, squinting at the carpet beneath my feet.   
It was then that I realised I had no shoes on.   
I nudged Degs. "Oy, Degs mate. I've got no shoes on."  
He grinned dopily and shook his head at me, "Jesus Baby, you gotta get your shit together man." I laughed, "Not that the rest of your outfit isn't absolutely class mate, but you do look like you've been living behind Poundland for a week."  
I laughed again. "Shut up, you tart."  
He chuckled and shook his head again.   
Hammel had already reached the studio door at the end of the corridor and had turned to see me and Degs about a mile behind him, trudging through this endless corridor. He widened his eyes at me and beckoned with a jerky hand for us to "Get a bloody move on!"  
I felt my lip curl. "At least behind Poundland, I wouldn't have dear old Ham Sandwich on my back all the fuckin' time." I grumbled. "Fuckin' wanker."  
Degs sniggered again, "Hope you're not expecting to talk like that in the interview Baby."  
I smirked.   
"Go on," he said, offering me one of the half-drunk beers we'd bought en-route, "Have the rest o' that, mellow out a bit."  
I raised my eyebrows slightly. "Gosh, someone's feeling generous this morning. A  _whole_  half a beer, lukewarm and everything!" I mumbled.  
I heard him chuckling as I downed it and passed the empty can to Hammel on our way into the studio, pointedly not noticing the irritated look he shot me.  
"Morning all!" I exclaimed, feeling a touch delirious, as I plopped myself down on of the chairs in front of a microphone, pulling a pair of huge blue headphones over my head.  
Two heads and a slicked-back quiff turned to me as I settled back in my spinny chair and prepared myself for a bollocking after the interview.

*****

"So, Alex and Baby, I believe you two have a connection."  
I looked up at Jonathan, our radio host-cum-interviewer, shocked, "So you noticed it too!"  
Matt and Alex laughed, graciously I must add - my banter was most definitely not 'on point' at this hour of the morning.   
"You both like, uh, John Cooper Clarke, is that right?"  
The dark haired one opposite me, Alex I guessed, turned to me and raised his eyebrows.  
"Alex, you've heard his poetry before right, in high school?"  
He shifted in his chair to look at Jonathan. "Uh, yeah, I had this really great drama teacher for a while called..."  
"Mr Baker?" Matt offered.   
"Yeah that was it. Mr Baker. Anyway, I remember him reading us this John Cooper Clarke poem, you know with the voice and everything," I smiled fondly as I thought of him, "And yeah, I guess it really resonated with me. It's definitely affected the way I write now, you know - that sort of conversational thing, with the lyrics."  
"And you two are quite good friends, right?" Jonathan turned to me.   
I laughed. "You could say that. I met him ages ago when I was staying in Camden. I was working on this grotty little bar at the end of an alley - right up his street, you know?" Alex smirked, "He was supporting this little known band - The Fall? I suppose you've heard of them," I joked.  
Jonathan grinned, "Oh yes?"  
"Anyway," I continued, "He was awesome, really enjoyed the set - and I think I ended up buying him a drink afterwards, I can't really remember the rest of that night to be honest." They laughed. "But I do remember finding out that we had the same shoe size - he gave me his shoes in the morning I think, when we woke up on his doorstep?"  
Jonathan laughed - "Sounds like a crazy night."  
I chuckled, "Yeah well... Oh, yeah - that was it! I woke up with no shoes on so he gave me his to get the Tube home!"  
Matt laughed raucously. "What was that you was saying earlier? About not being that much of a party animal, not like the press makes out?"  
Alex laughed too and turned to me.  
I rolled my eyes and grinned. "Fucks sake, I thought we'd forgotten about that!"  
Jonathan paled.  
"Oh shit, I'm sorry - I've done it again! I know I'm not meant to swear, I just -"  
Everybody joined in laughing this time and I was left to hang my still-slightly-hungover head in shame.   
"So, moving swiftly on," I laughed. "I'm with the Arctic Monkeys and Baby Maloney at Triple J, now, a lot of people from England say that one of the reasons they love the Arctic Monkeys, because they sing how they speak."  
Alex and Matt looked at each other, obviously deciding who was going to answer this one.   
"Now, a lot of guys - like Liam Gallagher, he sings, but he does not sing the way he speaks - Noel Gallagher, maybe a little bit, but you guys - you sing the way you speak."  
Alex paused. Glancing at Matt again he answered, "I think that was... That has been truer." Matt laughed and nodded. "I think in the beginning, that was almost the USP - that we had all these, you know, colloquialisms in the songs, and it sounded like a conversation." He paused for a second, itching the back of his neck. "Like, now, I find myself trying to speak, especially when we're abroad, a lot more clearly, to just be understood."  
"And not have to repeat stuff, you know." Matt added in, "I don't - we're not quite as explicitly... Yorkshire, anymore  - on wax."  
I chuckled.   
"But like, now, in an interview-"  
"Yeah, like when we're just, you know, when I'm talking in the... in the dressing room, or the bar..."  
"The rehearsal space?"  
"In the hot tub." I added. Alex laughed and looked over at me grinning.   
"Yeah, I think people'd have a hard time understanding us then..." He rubbed his chin, still smiling, "When we're in the hot tub."  
Jonathan grinned, introducing a song from the lads' new album; evidently, this interview wasn't panning out as badly as he'd thought it might. Matt and Alex had taken turns explaining, during the song breaks, what had happened before I'd turned up.  
They'd arrived about an hour early for their slot, expecting to find the first guest (me) just finishing up my interview. At this point, I was still fast asleep somewhere in the Western suburbs with my management team buzzing my rusty old Nokia every five minutes, leaving voicemails reminiscent of a gaggle of squawking geese. The station had obviously heard about my serial problem with showing up on time, and had preempted it by preparing a forty-minute arrangement of songs and chat-show-host-style babble to fill up the time until I could come on air. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that I was going to be late by significantly more than forty minutes, and somebody had had the bright idea of shuffling the slots so that Matt and Alex could take questions until 'the elusive Baby Maloney', as Matt put it, appeared. That's how they'd wound up making up their remaining time being interviewed alongside me.   
I found myself slowly tuning in to the song playing through my headphones. I winced as the lead guitar picked up and thrashed through my skull. It was quickly becoming apparent that alternative rock was not going to help this hangover. I slid the headphones off as quietly as possible - no need to be an hour and a half late,  _and_  insult the current reigning band in Britain.  
Alex caught my eye and smirked. "Not enjoying it?"  
Oh well.  
"Ragin' hangover mate." I smiled, though I imagine resulted in more of a pained grimace, "Enjoyed the first ten seconds of it though."  
Matt laughed, "Been out on the lash again, have you?"  
I rolled my eyes and grinned, "I swear to god Matthew Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is, I will slice your face off if you don't shut up about that."  
Alex laughed, "Might wanna wait til that headache dies down first love."  
"And now you too?" I frowned, "Didn't you hear Jonny? We've got a connection man, you can't go stabbing me in the back like that!"  
He laughed and opened his mouth to reply, but was cut short as the song promptly faded out and Jonathan launched back onto the mic to end the interview.   
Alex leaned over, chuckling. "Saved by the bell, eh?"  
I winked and slipped my headphones back on.   
"It's been great having you all here with us on Triple J!"  
"Great to be here, Jonny my lad!" I exclaimed.   
"Ey, he wasn't on about you!" Matt laughed, "He only likes the ones who are on time!"  
"Shouldn't have been partying away last night!" Jonathan added, reaching over to flick a button on the soundboard, "But anyway, lovely to have you on Triple J guys! That was Alex and Matt from the Arctic Monkeys, and Baby Maloney. You can go see the Arctic Monkeys playing tomorrow night at the Quantus Credit Union Arena, and Baby will be.."  
"I'll be around." I grinned at his confused, determinedly cheerful face.   
"And Baby will be... around? Now then, up next we've got a few tracks to liven you dozy lot up for this morning!"  
I rubbed my eyes and sighed, pulling off the headphones and dumping them on the desk in front of us. Before I knew it, I was being dragged backwards out of the studio by a firm hand on my shoulder.  _Oh_   _shit_ , I thought, as Alex looked up at me with a sort of what-the-fuck expression etched into his face,  _How did I forget about Hammy?_  
"So not only are you over an hour late for this interview, you also decide not to mention any bloody detail of the album?"  
He wheeled me round and I lost my balance, head dizzy and ringing as I slumped into the wall. I opened my mouth dazedly, misguidedly thinking I might have a go at defending myself.   
"No explanation then?"  
"Well old Jonny boy didn't have any clue about it either!"  
"What is wrong with you!" He yelled. I let my mind lose focus as he berated me, instead meditating on when the other Mick had been my manager. Oh, how simple had life been!  
Old Mick had been a mate of mine since I first met him in Berlin, touring some great little band - The Starts, was it? The Upstarts? Somehow, lucky little me had wormed my way into his heart and I'd ended up jamming with them onstage, covering this and drumming on that. He took me back to London, got me signed to Rough Trade and attempted to sort my life out. To his chagrin, during the short five weeks I was there, I got heavily embroiled in the hard-drug scene of Hackney. Looking back on it, that was the best thing I could have done I suppose. That's how I met Pete Doherty and his bouncing-off-the-walls gang of crackhead mates. He'd catapulted me into the public spotlight, and then suddenly, everybody wanted to hear my demo.   
I blinked back into the present as Hammel stormed off down the corridor.   
Degs popped up beside me.  
"You shouldn't do that you know," He chuckled, "You know it riles him up when you ignore him."  
"Give 'im a bloody heartattack, you will." Ally piped up beside him.   
"Fingers crossed, eh?"  
She laughed as Degs shook his head despairingly.   
"What we gonna do with you eh? Little fuckin' madhead." Degs wrapped an arm around me and hauled me off the wall into his side.  
"Get me mind-numbingly twatted out of my head?" I fluttered my eyelashes up at him.  
Ally grinned.  
"Come on, let's go get hammered."

We started off down the corridor, the lift seeming much closer than it had on the way up. I leaned into Degs and was hit by the overwhelming scent of weed.   
"Did you guys go pick up while I was in there, slaving away?" I frowned, "How come you get all the fuckin' fun?"  
Ally laughed and bumped into me. "Someone's gotta do it Babe."   
"Hey, stop stealing my bloody line!"  
She laughed and shoved me into the lift. I sighed and let my eyes close at the blissful thought of an afternoon spent getting stoned in a boiling hot park somewhere in the Sydney sun.   
"Hey, hold the lift!"  
My eyes drifted open at the Northern accent. Matt was striding down the corridor with Alex seemingly gliding beside him, donning a leather jacket, as they jogged towards the doors. They stepped in and the doors shut behind them.   
"Cheers." Matt said, smiling tiredly. He shuffled into the corner next to the door, Alex finding a square of space next to him - next to me.   
He turned to me quickly, and murmured - "Y'alright? Saw that guy havin' a go earlier."  
I felt a corner of my mouth turn up at the thought of an outsider seeing mine and Hammel's dislike-hate relationship.   
"I'll be fine. Pick mesen up, you know. Dust myself down and all that." I leaned in a bit closer, "I mean, did you hear him? Totally uncalled for!"  
He laughed. "Fair enough." He turned back to face the opening lift doors.   
We walked out together, Degs' arm having fallen away at some point, so that now it was me and Alex slouching along at the front of the group.   
"By the way."  
I looked up at him, eyebrows raised questioningly.   
"Did I smell bud in there?"  
I laughed and looked forwards again. Today was gonna be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction, and probably my first long-ish piece of writing, so please show me some love and send some advice in the comments. Or if that's too much effort, float me some good vibes bro
> 
> Also, here's a little glossary for those of you who aren't English/fluent in Yorkshire-speak. Not sure if some of these words are exclusive to Northern England or not, so bear with me. I'm including all of the ambiguous ones, just in case - it's not cause I think you're stupid. :)
> 
> 'fiver' : £5 pound note, recently redesigned in plastic instead of paper (fun fact: the new fiver is not suitable for vegetarians!)  
> 'petrol station' : gas station  
> 'class' : really good stuff, high class  
> 'Poundland' : yet another example of brilliant British branding here, basically just a shop where everything costs a pound  
> 'tart' : a word with many meanings - a lidless pie (e.g. tarte tatin), a promiscuous individual (e.g. slag, whore), or in this case, a general insult that is often used fondly (e.g. "Izzy, you silly tart!")  
> 'wanker' : somebody who 'wanks' (masturbates) a lot - a charming little insult  
> 'bollocking' : to 'bollock' someone is to tell them off, specifically the sort of telling off you might expect from your mam (e.g. that time she caught you after school on a Friday, having a sneaky fag with the older girls behind the bus stop)  
> 'grotty' : derived from 'grotesque', means a bit gross or just generally bad, very Northern - listen to any early Beatles interview and this will crop up somewhere  
> 'the Tube' : underground train system in London (e.g. Subway, Metro)  
> 'you was saying' : thought I'd pop this in down here - it's not a typo, us Northerners just tend to speak with bad grammar, nobody knows why  
> 'USP' : more of a business-y thing than a Northern one, acronym for Unique Selling Point  
> 'pan out' : turn out  
> 'on the lash' : gettin' freaky on a Friday night (e.g. clubbing, having a night out - implies drinking)  
> 'madhead' : only ever used fondly in my experience, refers to someone who a bit crazy/out of control - much more effective if you imagine it spoken without the 'h' (e.g. "Connor, stop it, you absolute mad-ed!"), even much when used in conjunction with sarcasm (e.g. "Another lemonade? Connor, stop it, you absolute mad-ed!")  
> 'pick up' : collect drugs  
> 'mesen' : episode two of 'Northerners Can't Speak English', means myself ('sen'='self', e.g. "Watch yoursen mate, you're treadin' mud!")  
> 'bud' : marijuana slang


End file.
